TO SHOW his love to his girlfriend, an accountant left a profitable job to join the Philippine National Police.
The sacrifice paid off yesterday.
Jason Arandia, 26 and a resident of barangay Pagsabungan, Mandaue City, was one of the 354 new police recruits, who took their oaths yesterday morning at the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) headquarters along Osmeña Boulevard, Cebu City.
Arandia told Cebu Daily News that he joined the police force to fully understand the job of his girlfriend, who was just a month away from becoming a nun when she decided to join the PNP in 2007.
PO1 Roanna Icot, 26, could not stop her tears from falling when she saw his boyfriend perform rigid exercises after the oath-taking.
Icot stood beside Arandia during the exercises and wiped his sweat after.
“Nihilak ko kay naluoy kaayo niya,”said Icot.
Icot said she was first planning to become a nun.
But she later decided to become a policewoman when her older brother, also a policeman, was killed in an accidental shooting on March 04, 2007.
Icot's father is a retired police colonel.
“I lost interest in going back to the convent when my elder brother died,” said Icot.
Arandia then followed the footsteps of his girlfriend.
“I just wanted to understand her work,” said Arandia. “It is my love for her that motivated me to become a policeman.”
“If I understand her work, I know it will help us save our relationship,” said Arandia, a Certified Public Accountant who worked as a corporate auditor of the Southern Industrial Gas before becoming a policeman.About 500 hopefuls applied for the police force but only 354 passed, way short of the 430 needed new policemen.
Of the 354 new recruits, 54 were female, 144 were board passers, 124 were licensed criminologist and seven were registered nurses.
The hard work of another new recruit from Dalaguete town nearly went to naught when he arrived late for the oath-taking.
Holding a bottle of liniment oil, Carl Aldwin Osorio told his superiors that he arrived late after he collapsed because of nausea.
A teary-eyed Osorio begged that he would be allowed to join the ceremony.
Osorio was later allowed to take a separate oath-taking. |
